Fun Food Friday

I hate the conversation that starts with "What do you want for dinner tonight?" It leads me down a horrible path of frustration. I was sick and tired of it so I changed my way of thinking about six weeks ago. In the interest of making meal planning easier for me, I came up with a weekly rhythm to what we eat. For example, if it's Saturday morning, we're having pancakes for breakfast. On Thursday, it's red (marinara) pasta for dinner. You get the idea. I struggled with Friday night dinner plans though. Previously, when we had higher salaries and weren't attempting to have two mortgages, Friday night was the night for eating out. I think that mentality is what caused me problems with Friday's dinner. I couldn't think of a category that encompassed both the ease and excitement of paying exorbitantly high prices to have someone else prepare mediocre food for my family. After weeks of struggle and trying out different ideas, I think I've found the winner-- fun food Friday, a night when I make easy, silly things for us to eat, kid food at its' best. On the menu this evening were swirly dogs and tater tots. For dessert, mud, dirt and worm parfaits. The girls had a great time. The pictures are of A and L building their parfaits and M eating an Oreo because I just couldn't bring myself to deal with the mess that would have came from her feeding herself pudding. Note the intense looks of concentration as they carefully place each broken piece of Oreo. On a slightly disturbing side note, the gummy worms had eyes and smiles. I felt a little bad eating something that was smiling at me.

I think one of the funniest parts of dessert might have been my husband's struggle with the realization of the concept. He's too literal. Oreos don't look like dirt to him. He finally rationalized the whole thing by deciding that it wasn't just dirt. It was potting soil with vermiculite. What?! How could I not love him when his brain works like that?